Joe Sherlock Kid Detective 1 : The Haunted Toolshed (8 page)

I Got Your Poof Right Here!

“Wow! Did someone attack you with a rowing oar?”

Mr. Asher is looking at me through the peephole in his front door.

“Could you please open the door, Mr. Asher?”

“Oh, sorry,” he says with a nervous laugh.

Finally the door opens. I push past him, limp directly into the kitchen, and start flinging open every drawer.

“Sherlock, what are you doing?” he asks above the clatter of kitchen drawers opening and closing.

“What is this called?” I demand to know, holding up a silver cooking utensil that claps together at the end.

I see fear flicker in his eyes as he stares at the cooking tool I’m snapping open and closed like a metallic crab claw.

“Those are called tongs.” The voice comes from Mrs. Asher, who has quietly entered the kitchen.

Her eyes dart back and forth between her husband and me. She slowly picks up a meat thermometer from one of the open drawers. I think she plans to use it to protect her husband in case I attack him with the clacking tongs.

Instead I step over to the sink and go to work. The Ashers are silent behind me. I can feel their eyes on the back of my neck.

“Don’t make any sudden movements,” Mrs. Asher whispers to her husband.

“He may have had his brains scrambled,”

Mr. Asher whispers back. “It looks like someone took batting practice with his head.”

“Look at this!” I announce suddenly, spinning around wildly. They both gasp in alarm. They gasp again when their eyes follow my outstretched arm and come to rest on the single glass eye clasped firmly in the end of the silver tongs.

“How did you . . . ” Mr. Asher’s voice trails off before he can finish.

“I fished it out of the garbage

disposal,” I explain, dropping the eye into a glass of water that’s half empty. “I could only hope that you didn’t need to use the garbage disposal before I could return tonight. Luckily, you didn’t. It was the only logical place it could be, since someone who was stealing fresh-baked bundt cakes would have no use for a glass eye.”

“That’s amazing,” says

Mrs. Asher.

“I figure it rolled off the

windowsill when the second

cake was being stolen,” I explain.

“I simply imagined the places it could be, and decided that it must have rolled down the drain.”

“Brilliant,” says Mr. Asher with a tap of his cane.

I smile. “Just wait until I show you what happened to your mailbox. Follow me!”

You've Got No Mail!

“Mr. Asher, exactly where was your garbage can this past Thursday night?”

“Don’t tell me you think my garbage can ate my new mailbox,” Mr. Asher says, pointing at the black hole with his cane.

“Am I standing about where you left your garbage can last Thursday night?” I ask, placing my feet on top of the curb.

“Yes. Yes, that is where I left it,” he insists, as if he’s being accused of something.

“And that is where it was the next day when I discovered my mailbox was missing.”

I snap my fingers so suddenly Mr. Asher flinches. “Don’t you see, Mr. Asher? Your mailbox was taken by accident when your garbage was picked up early Friday morning.

It’s at the Baskerville Municipal Dump right now under tons of dirty diapers, moldy bread, and uneaten beef stew with broccoli and lima beans.”

“That’s impossible,” he says gruffly. “Why would the garbageman take my new mailbox?”

“The garbageman doesn’t actually lift up these new garbage cans,” I say. “You see, it’s all robotic. Our garbage cans are grabbed by a giant pair of robotic pinchers that reach out from the side of the truck, like a pair of garbage-grabbing pliers. They hoist the cans up and dump the junk in the back of the truck.”

Mr. Asher stares at me with a blank face.

“I’m usually in bed at that hour, so I would never have noticed,” he mumbles.

“You installed your new mailbox too close to where you leave your garbage can. The two-fingered clampers must have reached around your garbage can and yanked your new mailbox up with your garbage can.”

“It had a lovely brass flag,” Mr. Asher says with a sniff.

“I’m sorry for your loss, Mr. Asher,” I say, patting him on the shoulder. “Now, if you’ll follow me, it’s time to unmask the person who’s behind the haunting of your toolshed.”

Off to the Wheelbarrow Races

I’m so excited by the sudden turnaround of luck that I never even see the wheelbarrow until it’s too late.

Just as I think I’m on a roll that would even make Sherlock Holmes green with envy, I’m suddenly belly surfing for the second time tonight. Only this time I’m left with about four tablespoons of dirt in my mouth.

It takes me a few moments to realize exactly what has happened. And why I’m eating a dirt sandwich.

I roll onto my knees and do my best to spit the soil from my mouth.

That’s when I hear Mr. Asher crashing through some tall bushes to my right. “Mr. Asher,” I whisper as loud as I can, “I’m over here.” I hear him stop and grunt, but he moves on toward the toolshed without me.

But wait! That’s not him. Mr. Asher can’t be on my right. Because I now see him stumbling out of the darkness from behind me.

And he doesn’t see the wheelbarrow, either.

What a dumb place to leave a wheelbarrow! Before I can move out of the way, Mr. Asher trips and plows into me like a bull in a china shop.

“Ooooomph!” Mr. Asher wheezes, while at the same time blowing an alarmingly high-pitched blast from his nose whistle.

I’m knocked like a circus clown into two backward somersaults.

“Sherlock?” Mr. Asher groans. “Sorry, I didn’t see you.”

“No problem,” I squeak.

With some panic, I realize that my lungs no longer work.

I think I’ve been hit in the solar plexus. I know this because Lance once told me that your solar plexus is a small section of your guts, right above your stomach and below your rib cage, that acts like an emergency shut-off button for your lungs. Well, my lung button has taken a direct hit. Unfortunately, Lance never mentioned where the emergency restart button is. My lungs feel like two tiny raisins dangling helplessly next to my heart.

I can smell boiling cabbage again. What does that mean!

Finally, my raisins reinflate. I suck in the cool air. I look over to make sure Mr. Asher is okay. In the darkness I can see he is standing again, his hands on his knees.

But about forty yards behind him, I see two flashlights coming through the brush.

Officer Lestrade! He’s too early! I’m so close to solving this mystery I can taste it—

no, wait . . . that must be the dirt sandwich.

“Quick, Mr. Asher,” I plead, steering him by the arm so he doesn’t see the flashlights coming our way. “Let’s finish this haunted toolshed business once and for all.”

“Sherlock, I need to rest,” he insists.

“You there, wait!” thunders a voice from behind us.

“Quick, Mr. Asher, take a rest in this wheelbarrow!” I shout.